1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to food service cabinets with trays for selectively moving food into and out of a treatment space defined by the cabinet and, more particularly, to structure for selectively opening and closing an access door in response to movement of the tray.
2. Background Art
Food is commonly cooked and/or preserved in cabinets having treatment spaces with controlled temperature and/or humidity. The use of these cabinets have become increasingly popular in fast food operations to, for example, preserve breads, pancakes, waffles, tortillas, and the like. Typically, the foods are stored in bulk in the cabinets and removed by food servers on an order-by-order basis.
In a typical cabinet construction, a removable tray is provided upon which the food is carried. A door is hingedly attached to the cabinet and provides an access to the inside storage space and the tray therein. To load food into the cabinet, a user first opens the door and withdraws the tray to place food thereon. The loaded tray is then placed back into the cabinet and the door closed to maintain the desired conditions within the cabinet.
The problem with such conventional structures is that generally they require two-handed operation as the door and tray must be separately manipulated both to load and unload the cabinet. Such conventional cabinets are thus relatively inefficient and often impractical in high volume fast food operations.
An additional problem is that the user may frequently leave the door open after loading food into or removing food from the cabinet. The result is a loss of heat and/or humidity from the cabinet to the atmosphere and a resulting uncontrolled cooking and/or preservation of food within the cabinet.